So all sorts of interesting stuff is being announced regarding the impending offerings of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. Historically I've breathlessly followed their press conferences when new consoles were impending. Today I just walked obliviously into the fact that Nintendo announced their new console.
I'll comment more later when I've had a chance to actually watch the press conference. That said, I'm concerned Nintendo isn't taking usability into consideration these days.
The 3DS requires you maintain a perfect, motionless posture to properly view the 3D aspect. Any motion at all and portions of the screen go flat, resulting in a fairly awkward mix of 2D and 3D that strains the eyes.
The Wii U requires you look back and forth between two screens. "Ah," you say, "But did not the DS require the same?" No, it didn't. The two screens on the DS are equidistant from your face and directly next to one another. Looking between a touch screen in your hands and your TV 6-10 feet away requires actual neck movement and refocusing.
These concerns may be unwarranted and overblown, but they're my first impressions having just seen pictures of the console and its controller.
Oh, and I guess Sony is releasing a new handheld. It's name makes me think of a brand of vegetable juice. Meanwhile Microsoft is upping the ante with Halo 4: The "We couldn't be arsed to make something new so we're just rereleasing Halo again and printing money" edition.
Showing posts with label Sony. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sony. Show all posts
20110608
20080716
E3 2008: The Doldroms
It wasn't long ago that the entire gaming community was breathless every May as the much vaunted E3 exploded with fantastic claims of supremacy by the big three console makers, amazing demos of soon to be blockbuster games, and plenty of speculation as to the market's future.
This year, very little of that happened.
The E3 of old is truly dead and gone, a relic of an era coming to a close. The first steps toward making videos an accepted form of mass media have been taken, and the rest can only follow.
What makes E3 2008 so unremarkable is not the shift of focus to a wider audience, but rather how little things have changed in the past year. Nintendo is still reaping the incredible rewards of their strategy, Microsoft is still blindly scrambling to hop on board, and Sony is still drifting. There's nothing new under the sun.
There were various points of interest. Nintendo announced a new attachment for their Wiimote, supposedly this one will allow for true 1:1 mapping of movement to control. Microsoft announced more changes to their Xbox Live interface including insidiously familiar avatars (they essentially look like the "hip" version of Miis), and Sony once again heaped incredible pre-rendered footage and promises at our feet, begging for just one more year to get their act together as another exclusive title became not so exclusive.
Nothing that particularly shook the status quo happened.
Sure, the usual herds of insanely rabid fanboys swarmed the internet trolling forums and news sites claiming X, Y or Z spelled the ascension or continued dominance of one company while A, B or C spelled doom for another. This time, however, people largely didn't bite. No one cared to, what was the point?
Sure, Final Fantasy 13 is no longer a PS3 exclusive, but it's not like any of their exclusives thus far have been that spectacular. Harping on the PS3s games library at this point is like harping on President Bush for his bad foreign relations.
Sure, the new Wii attachment could be seen as basically admitting that the Wiimote alone wasn't sufficient for true 1:1 motion capture. That revelation is as old as the Wii's release date. It's sudden rerevealing doesn't mean that Nintendo suddenly loses its profits, marketshare or mindshare.
Sure, Microsoft's presentation once again stank of their impossible attempts to understand the house that Miyamoto built. Once again, this has been pretty obvious from the get go. Acting as though their continued inability to comprehend what lies beyond the realm of teenage to college-aged male gaming is anything new is disingenuous considering they've been at it since last generation.
So for the hardcore gamer, this year's E3 was something of a bust. Both Nintendo and Microsoft were focused largely on people other than you, and Sony had nothing interesting except the stuff we we've been hearing about for two to four years already. At a time when typically salvos of new games taking hardware and game design to new peaks are being revealed, instead we find ourselves watching as our kid sibling the "casual gamer" gets all the attention.
It's a tough pill to swallow for people who've been the center of attention for two decades. The pendulum is swinging away, and for a while the old guard is going to be largely ignored except for misguided attempts at more Halo-like FPSs. Eventually it'll swing back our way, then forth again, and back again until eventually the momentum dies entirely and we have a nice equilibrium.
For now, I'll just look forward to Spore, the next WoW expansion and my currently vastly underplayed library of cool games that have already come out but I haven't beaten (Twilight Princess, Trauma Center, Ninja Gaiden 2, Armored Core 4 etc).
This year, very little of that happened.
The E3 of old is truly dead and gone, a relic of an era coming to a close. The first steps toward making videos an accepted form of mass media have been taken, and the rest can only follow.
What makes E3 2008 so unremarkable is not the shift of focus to a wider audience, but rather how little things have changed in the past year. Nintendo is still reaping the incredible rewards of their strategy, Microsoft is still blindly scrambling to hop on board, and Sony is still drifting. There's nothing new under the sun.
There were various points of interest. Nintendo announced a new attachment for their Wiimote, supposedly this one will allow for true 1:1 mapping of movement to control. Microsoft announced more changes to their Xbox Live interface including insidiously familiar avatars (they essentially look like the "hip" version of Miis), and Sony once again heaped incredible pre-rendered footage and promises at our feet, begging for just one more year to get their act together as another exclusive title became not so exclusive.
Nothing that particularly shook the status quo happened.
Sure, the usual herds of insanely rabid fanboys swarmed the internet trolling forums and news sites claiming X, Y or Z spelled the ascension or continued dominance of one company while A, B or C spelled doom for another. This time, however, people largely didn't bite. No one cared to, what was the point?
Sure, Final Fantasy 13 is no longer a PS3 exclusive, but it's not like any of their exclusives thus far have been that spectacular. Harping on the PS3s games library at this point is like harping on President Bush for his bad foreign relations.
Sure, the new Wii attachment could be seen as basically admitting that the Wiimote alone wasn't sufficient for true 1:1 motion capture. That revelation is as old as the Wii's release date. It's sudden rerevealing doesn't mean that Nintendo suddenly loses its profits, marketshare or mindshare.
Sure, Microsoft's presentation once again stank of their impossible attempts to understand the house that Miyamoto built. Once again, this has been pretty obvious from the get go. Acting as though their continued inability to comprehend what lies beyond the realm of teenage to college-aged male gaming is anything new is disingenuous considering they've been at it since last generation.
So for the hardcore gamer, this year's E3 was something of a bust. Both Nintendo and Microsoft were focused largely on people other than you, and Sony had nothing interesting except the stuff we we've been hearing about for two to four years already. At a time when typically salvos of new games taking hardware and game design to new peaks are being revealed, instead we find ourselves watching as our kid sibling the "casual gamer" gets all the attention.
It's a tough pill to swallow for people who've been the center of attention for two decades. The pendulum is swinging away, and for a while the old guard is going to be largely ignored except for misguided attempts at more Halo-like FPSs. Eventually it'll swing back our way, then forth again, and back again until eventually the momentum dies entirely and we have a nice equilibrium.
For now, I'll just look forward to Spore, the next WoW expansion and my currently vastly underplayed library of cool games that have already come out but I haven't beaten (Twilight Princess, Trauma Center, Ninja Gaiden 2, Armored Core 4 etc).
20070711
E3 2007: Gut Reactions
I haven't actually watched any significant portion of the news conferences, the Sony conference isn't even over, but I thought I'd share with you my gut reactions about this year's E3.
Firstly, it's obviously very different. If you watched the conferences from previous years you'll note a significantly less active crowd. There are applause and cheers, but it feels unenthusiastic compared to the past. If it wasn't universal, you would think each of the big three gaming companies were in trouble.
Microsoft seems to be attempting to join the mini-games bandwagon with a Viva Pinata game of that flavor. Halo 3 looks absolutely awesome. Microsoft seems content to stay their course for the most part, while attempting to ramp up support for more casual gaming.
Nintendo annoyed a lot of hardcore gamers by focusing largely on casuals with their conference. Most of what was seen will be more of the family fun stuff like WiiSports and Wario Ware. There were tidbits for hardcore gamers (Mario Kart in the first months of 2008, Super Smash Bros Brawl on December 3rd 2007, online play and more), but it wasn't the focus of the show. Expect temper tantrums to continue before hardcore gamers realize that they aren't going to be the sole focus of gaming anymore.
Sony didn't impress me. The incoming games they've described show a lot of great ideas, and that's to their credit. They don't seem to have done anything extremely stupid this conference, so far anyway. However, I am going to level one severe criticism at them, namely the redesigned PSP. There are legitimate reasons for having done this, but the way they seem to have gone about it leads me to believe they are simply trying to duplicate the success of the DS Lite. As much as the DS redesign helped sleekify matters, I don't believe the already sleek PSP is going to benefit in the same way.
It's hard to know what to expect from the rest of E3. It'd be nice to get some news on Spore or Hellgate: London, but I'm not going to hold my breath as the layman is not the target of the new conference.
Firstly, it's obviously very different. If you watched the conferences from previous years you'll note a significantly less active crowd. There are applause and cheers, but it feels unenthusiastic compared to the past. If it wasn't universal, you would think each of the big three gaming companies were in trouble.
Microsoft seems to be attempting to join the mini-games bandwagon with a Viva Pinata game of that flavor. Halo 3 looks absolutely awesome. Microsoft seems content to stay their course for the most part, while attempting to ramp up support for more casual gaming.
Nintendo annoyed a lot of hardcore gamers by focusing largely on casuals with their conference. Most of what was seen will be more of the family fun stuff like WiiSports and Wario Ware. There were tidbits for hardcore gamers (Mario Kart in the first months of 2008, Super Smash Bros Brawl on December 3rd 2007, online play and more), but it wasn't the focus of the show. Expect temper tantrums to continue before hardcore gamers realize that they aren't going to be the sole focus of gaming anymore.
Sony didn't impress me. The incoming games they've described show a lot of great ideas, and that's to their credit. They don't seem to have done anything extremely stupid this conference, so far anyway. However, I am going to level one severe criticism at them, namely the redesigned PSP. There are legitimate reasons for having done this, but the way they seem to have gone about it leads me to believe they are simply trying to duplicate the success of the DS Lite. As much as the DS redesign helped sleekify matters, I don't believe the already sleek PSP is going to benefit in the same way.
It's hard to know what to expect from the rest of E3. It'd be nice to get some news on Spore or Hellgate: London, but I'm not going to hold my breath as the layman is not the target of the new conference.
20070427
Nintendomination
Yup, you guessed it. More good news for Nintendo has been released. Aside from reports left and right that the Wii is kicking butt, Nintendo nearly reached 6 million Wiis sold by the end of their fiscal year. However, more interesting are their projected future sales.
Nintendo stated that they project 14 million Wiis and 22 million DSs to be sold this fiscal year. That means that by the end of March 2008, there will be 20 million Wiis and 62 million DSs worldwide. I calculated the rate at which DSs and Wiis are being sold, and it was staggering.
Given the current numbers, Microsoft will need to sell 10 million Xbox 360s to keep their lead. Their latest sales figures aren't promising in this regard. Sony needs to push 17 million PS3s to catch up iwith the Wii. The PSP is already 16 million systems behind the DS. It doesn't look good for anyone trying to beat Nintendo.
In other news, here is a short list of games I wish there was more news for.
1. Spore
2. Hellgate: London
3. Super Smash Bros: Brawl
4. Halo 3
5. Dynasty Warriors 6
Nintendo stated that they project 14 million Wiis and 22 million DSs to be sold this fiscal year. That means that by the end of March 2008, there will be 20 million Wiis and 62 million DSs worldwide. I calculated the rate at which DSs and Wiis are being sold, and it was staggering.
Given the current numbers, Microsoft will need to sell 10 million Xbox 360s to keep their lead. Their latest sales figures aren't promising in this regard. Sony needs to push 17 million PS3s to catch up iwith the Wii. The PSP is already 16 million systems behind the DS. It doesn't look good for anyone trying to beat Nintendo.
In other news, here is a short list of games I wish there was more news for.
1. Spore
2. Hellgate: London
3. Super Smash Bros: Brawl
4. Halo 3
5. Dynasty Warriors 6
20070307
PS3 Phone Home
This will be brief, I've already bombarded what readers I have with two monolothic rants in the past few days, and I can be reasonably terse about this.
Sony has announced Home, a service meant to simultaneously rival both Xbox Live and Nintendo's Mii Channel. It's an impressive tool, and almost a game unto itself. It has graphics reminiscent of the Sims or Second Life, and features minigames, scenery and other interesting tidbits. There'll be lots of opportunities for those "microtransactions" that the industry loves these days.
My biggest critique of the system is that it missed the point of both Live and the Mii Channel. The power of both is in simple elegance. It is not difficult to use Live, or to use and create Miis. They are designed to be easy and effective. In this way, they can appeal to casual gamers. Home is neither of this things, and seems to offer more complication than simplification. This will definately be great for already established gamers. They've basically been training themselves to be adaptable to new user interfaces starting from when they first played. It's the casual gamers and the non-gamers, the ones who will be increasingly important as the industry moves forward, who won't want to bother.
Is Home bad? Nah. However, it's innovating in the wrong direction.
Sony has announced Home, a service meant to simultaneously rival both Xbox Live and Nintendo's Mii Channel. It's an impressive tool, and almost a game unto itself. It has graphics reminiscent of the Sims or Second Life, and features minigames, scenery and other interesting tidbits. There'll be lots of opportunities for those "microtransactions" that the industry loves these days.
My biggest critique of the system is that it missed the point of both Live and the Mii Channel. The power of both is in simple elegance. It is not difficult to use Live, or to use and create Miis. They are designed to be easy and effective. In this way, they can appeal to casual gamers. Home is neither of this things, and seems to offer more complication than simplification. This will definately be great for already established gamers. They've basically been training themselves to be adaptable to new user interfaces starting from when they first played. It's the casual gamers and the non-gamers, the ones who will be increasingly important as the industry moves forward, who won't want to bother.
Is Home bad? Nah. However, it's innovating in the wrong direction.
20070214
The King is dead, long live the King!
I'm increasingly convinced that there are two paths availible to the previous video game king, Sony.
1) Come to terms with what is right and wrong with the Playstation 3.
2) Die, slowly, pitifully, and without friends.
I'm not going to bother listing the latest of the shenanigans on Sony's part. Penny-Arcade does a good enough job on the most recent offense. If you have the time, read the corresponding news section on the website. It works well as a source for much of the following thought.
Quite simply, the two paths I listed about are what every hardcore gamer MUST hope for. I highlight the word 'must' because it is absolutely imperative to the industry that Sony either realize their wayward ways or die. The alternative is horrific.
Penny-Arcade had an insight that set this off, and it was that right now it is the hardcore who are carrying Sony. Only a hardcore gamer will spend $600 on a PS3, or will have enough motivation to convince their parents to buy one for them. The casual people are interested, but they want to wait and see.
In this crucial time period, Sony is continually alienating the hardcore. Every comment that drips as acrid slime from their mouths spreads like wildfire through the internet and to the ears of the elite gamers, proud of their constant attunement to the latest news on all topics gaming. This is exactly the wrong thing to be doing, and if they succeed despite their arrogance a terrible and destructive message will be sent to those in charge of every company that has a presence in the industry.
Spineless.
In a sense, the hardcore are the ramparts of the gamers. We're the ones who pay attention, the ones who are "in the know". If we roll over for these companies, they will KNOW they can have their way, no matter what. If the hardcore do not resist, how can we expect the casual gamer to be bothered? They do not know that the man in charge of Sony Computer Entertainment of America is in complete denial that there are PS3s unsold in stores. They do not know that the crashing PS3 demo displays are a "feature" rather than a bug. They simply know there is a PS3, and often not even how much it costs.
If Sony survives, but does not amend their ways, it's as good as waiving our rights to decent treatment at the hands of the monolithic companies that drive the industry.
Perhaps I'm simply reacting drastically and without truly deep thought as it is late, but I can not see Sony's survival without reform as a positive influence in the industry. Should they learn, I will welcome them back into the fold with open arms. Should they perish, I will mourn their loss. But should they persist in their rancid words that defy both reality and insult the intelligence of the people they purport to understand, no supplication will be enough to reconcile me to them.
1) Come to terms with what is right and wrong with the Playstation 3.
2) Die, slowly, pitifully, and without friends.
I'm not going to bother listing the latest of the shenanigans on Sony's part. Penny-Arcade does a good enough job on the most recent offense. If you have the time, read the corresponding news section on the website. It works well as a source for much of the following thought.
Quite simply, the two paths I listed about are what every hardcore gamer MUST hope for. I highlight the word 'must' because it is absolutely imperative to the industry that Sony either realize their wayward ways or die. The alternative is horrific.
Penny-Arcade had an insight that set this off, and it was that right now it is the hardcore who are carrying Sony. Only a hardcore gamer will spend $600 on a PS3, or will have enough motivation to convince their parents to buy one for them. The casual people are interested, but they want to wait and see.
In this crucial time period, Sony is continually alienating the hardcore. Every comment that drips as acrid slime from their mouths spreads like wildfire through the internet and to the ears of the elite gamers, proud of their constant attunement to the latest news on all topics gaming. This is exactly the wrong thing to be doing, and if they succeed despite their arrogance a terrible and destructive message will be sent to those in charge of every company that has a presence in the industry.
Spineless.
In a sense, the hardcore are the ramparts of the gamers. We're the ones who pay attention, the ones who are "in the know". If we roll over for these companies, they will KNOW they can have their way, no matter what. If the hardcore do not resist, how can we expect the casual gamer to be bothered? They do not know that the man in charge of Sony Computer Entertainment of America is in complete denial that there are PS3s unsold in stores. They do not know that the crashing PS3 demo displays are a "feature" rather than a bug. They simply know there is a PS3, and often not even how much it costs.
If Sony survives, but does not amend their ways, it's as good as waiving our rights to decent treatment at the hands of the monolithic companies that drive the industry.
Perhaps I'm simply reacting drastically and without truly deep thought as it is late, but I can not see Sony's survival without reform as a positive influence in the industry. Should they learn, I will welcome them back into the fold with open arms. Should they perish, I will mourn their loss. But should they persist in their rancid words that defy both reality and insult the intelligence of the people they purport to understand, no supplication will be enough to reconcile me to them.
20070112
NintendOwned
Last week's video game sales charts from Japan paint a very interesting story...
In short, you need to go down fifteen places before you find a single game title that wasn't for a Nintendo console. In fact, nine of the Top Ten were first-party Nintendo titles, fifteen of the top twenty, and twenty of the top thirty.
Even more surprising is how OLD some of these games are. Animal Crossing was released over a year ago, and was still #7!
Worse yet for Sony, four out of their six titles on the list aren't even for a current-generation system! The PS3 doesn't make a single appearance on the list, while the PSP only has two titles able to break Nintendo's stranglehold on software sales. Meanwhile, Microsoft isn't anywhere to be seen at all.
Quite simply, if there was any doubt that Nintendo was going to pwn this generation you need only look to Japan. Nintendo is trashing all comers there, leading in both console and software sales by a long, distant shot.
Microsoft can trumpet their 10 million consoles until the end times, and rightly so. However, they don't have a single million in Japan, while Nintendo is screaming forward in all regions as fast as they can produce systems and games.
Sony is only at 1 million consoles worldwide, and already they are sitting on shelves here in North America.
I'm doing my "told you so" dance right now. We'll see how long it goes before something changes in the industry and I have to stop.
In short, you need to go down fifteen places before you find a single game title that wasn't for a Nintendo console. In fact, nine of the Top Ten were first-party Nintendo titles, fifteen of the top twenty, and twenty of the top thirty.
Even more surprising is how OLD some of these games are. Animal Crossing was released over a year ago, and was still #7!
Worse yet for Sony, four out of their six titles on the list aren't even for a current-generation system! The PS3 doesn't make a single appearance on the list, while the PSP only has two titles able to break Nintendo's stranglehold on software sales. Meanwhile, Microsoft isn't anywhere to be seen at all.
Quite simply, if there was any doubt that Nintendo was going to pwn this generation you need only look to Japan. Nintendo is trashing all comers there, leading in both console and software sales by a long, distant shot.
Microsoft can trumpet their 10 million consoles until the end times, and rightly so. However, they don't have a single million in Japan, while Nintendo is screaming forward in all regions as fast as they can produce systems and games.
Sony is only at 1 million consoles worldwide, and already they are sitting on shelves here in North America.
I'm doing my "told you so" dance right now. We'll see how long it goes before something changes in the industry and I have to stop.
20061213
Astroturf
You may or may not be aware of Sony's recent attempt to generate a grassroots campaign for their PSP. The whole thing was ridiculously obvious because the marketing company that was hired was incapable of using 13375p34k properly. That's right, what they generated was a hideous abomination of a hideous abomination.
Below is an analysis of on of the "blog" posts from the offending website. It should become very obvious that A) using ur and luv does not a 1337 g3m4r make and B) I know way too much about 13375p34k, gamers and the internet.
Begin analysis.
You don't need to have spent years on the internet to know that when someone makes common mistakes/shortcuts like luv and ur, they don't do it halfway. You'll never see the following sentence on the internet by someone doing it unintentionally.
This sentence of my creation highlights something everyone who's ever used IRC, read Barrens chat, or hacked the e-mail of a 14 year old knows. People who use ur and luv and similar shortcuts and mispellings will not be using proper punctuation, spelling and grammar. It doesn't happen.
Yet, here is what we have from the website. I will be pointlessly dissecting it.
People do not use colons on the internet. That key is the jaded and lost son of the realm of QWERTY. People also make assumptions, assumptions such as their identity being well known. They won't be specifying that they are "charlie", you should already know that. If you don't, you're a noob. Jeremy fails to be derided for not having a PSP. Lastly, no one speaking like this would specify "this year", or type "one" out. Number keys are there 4 a reason.
No one on the internet can spell subtle, let alone know where to use hyphens. A common thing to notice is the use of larger words here were smaller ones would have sufficed. "started" could be "were" or "did". "created" is two syllabels longer than "made". The last sentence would more improperly be "we maed this site 2 giv luv 4 u who want a psp liek j!"
Again with the long words. Very few words over 2 syllabels are in the common lexicon on the internet. "consider", "personal", "holiday", "whoever", all unknown to the internet mind. Again with the hyphens as well. There are no "girl"s on the internet, only "gf"s, and when was the last time we saw "granny"? What kid this supposed age would have a "boss"?
Anyone who uses ur is not going to type out "you". "you" is four characters too many as it is. Also, the kind of comraderie shown in this last sentiment is completely foreign. This is the internet, not a high tea. There are no favors, there are only noobs and 1337 h4x.
Ironically, this horribly conceived effort at joining the netizens was least among the symptoms of the greater evil. Very quickly enterprising people spent all of five minutes finding the administrative contacts of the website, linking them to a marketing company, and matching up employee pictures to the people on the website. Almost as soon as the website was up the jig was up.
I wasn't originally going to blab about any of this, were it not for Sony's "apology" or "confession" contained below.
I would like to take the opportunity to rail against this.
Firstly, many is a small reckoning. 99% of people aware of the website found out, instantly. The other 1% saw that everyone else had figured it out already and moved on to other things.
Secondly, stop. You weren't cool before, you aren't cool now. Your speech wasn't too funky fresh, in fact I can't think of anyone describing "ur", "luv" and similar shortcuts as such. No, your speech as a baldfaced attempt at pretending to be something you weren't and you failed miserably. Lets look at that again, you failed miserably to mispell words. That just boggles the mind.
Thirdly, it was deathly obvious from that incredible mind-destroying "rap" video that Peter was not, in fact a hip-hop maven. If you survived the video anyway.
Fourthly, a mere cursory look at the webpage immediately screams "marketing". Even Xbox 360 fansites don't plaster system related imagery everywhere like that.
Fifthly, it's not that you were trying to be a little too clever, it's that you A) went out of your way to lie to us and B) failed utterly and completely to fool anyone but yourselves.
Sixthly, your initial product (the webpage) wasn't cool. Making a cool product is a prerequisite to continue making cool products. I can't say I'll continue running away from you screaming at the horror of your creations unless I had already begun my speedy trek in a direction orthogonal to you.
Lastly, it's too late. Who with any sense whatsoever is going to believe anything you say from this point onward? We're supposed to get "just the facts" from a website whose initial point and purpose was an intentional and intricate deception? Snowball's chance on an overclocked CPU.
As an addendum, the worst part of the apology is that they still tried to act cool. When I apologize to someone for a trangression, I do not act as I normally do. My wit, jokes, sarcasm, jolly nature and other attributes are pushed aside because apologies and confessions are serious business. This is especially true when trying to reestablish someone's trust after something as destructive as a lie. Yet Sony, signing as Sony Computer Entertainment America no less, did not cut the crap and continued in part their charade even as they confessed.
I'm of the opinion that whoever is in charge of Sony's PR and marketing needs to be fired, around eight months ago. There hasn't been a single piece of good news generated by Sony's own PR machine starting May 2006 during and after E3. Things that could have been excellent news were lukewarm, and things that might have been only minor issues spiralled uncontrolled into whirlwinds of bad press. This is just another lead pipe on a thoroughly crushed camel.
Sony need to get their PR act together, because ultimately it's going to hurt them severely if they don't. It shouldn't be this hard to market the incumbent.
Below is an analysis of on of the "blog" posts from the offending website. It should become very obvious that A) using ur and luv does not a 1337 g3m4r make and B) I know way too much about 13375p34k, gamers and the internet.
Begin analysis.
You don't need to have spent years on the internet to know that when someone makes common mistakes/shortcuts like luv and ur, they don't do it halfway. You'll never see the following sentence on the internet by someone doing it unintentionally.
Hello everyone, I was just thinking that ur all going to luv my latest blog entry.
This sentence of my creation highlights something everyone who's ever used IRC, read Barrens chat, or hacked the e-mail of a 14 year old knows. People who use ur and luv and similar shortcuts and mispellings will not be using proper punctuation, spelling and grammar. It doesn't happen.
Yet, here is what we have from the website. I will be pointlessly dissecting it.
here's the deal::: i (charlie) have a psp. my friend jeremy does not. but he wants one this year for xmas.
People do not use colons on the internet. That key is the jaded and lost son of the realm of QWERTY. People also make assumptions, assumptions such as their identity being well known. They won't be specifying that they are "charlie", you should already know that. If you don't, you're a noob. Jeremy fails to be derided for not having a PSP. Lastly, no one speaking like this would specify "this year", or type "one" out. Number keys are there 4 a reason.
so we started clowning with sum not-so-subtle hints to j's parents that a psp would be teh perfect gift. we created this site to spread the luv to those like j who want a psp!
No one on the internet can spell subtle, let alone know where to use hyphens. A common thing to notice is the use of larger words here were smaller ones would have sufficed. "started" could be "were" or "did". "created" is two syllabels longer than "made". The last sentence would more improperly be "we maed this site 2 giv luv 4 u who want a psp liek j!"
consider us your own personal psp hype machine, here to help you wage a holiday assault on ur parents, girl, granny, boss -- whoever -- so they know what you really want.
Again with the long words. Very few words over 2 syllabels are in the common lexicon on the internet. "consider", "personal", "holiday", "whoever", all unknown to the internet mind. Again with the hyphens as well. There are no "girl"s on the internet, only "gf"s, and when was the last time we saw "granny"? What kid this supposed age would have a "boss"?
we'll let you know how it works for us. pls return the favor.
more to come,
c&j.
Anyone who uses ur is not going to type out "you". "you" is four characters too many as it is. Also, the kind of comraderie shown in this last sentiment is completely foreign. This is the internet, not a high tea. There are no favors, there are only noobs and 1337 h4x.
Ironically, this horribly conceived effort at joining the netizens was least among the symptoms of the greater evil. Very quickly enterprising people spent all of five minutes finding the administrative contacts of the website, linking them to a marketing company, and matching up employee pictures to the people on the website. Almost as soon as the website was up the jig was up.
I wasn't originally going to blab about any of this, were it not for Sony's "apology" or "confession" contained below.
Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.
Sony Computer Entertainment America
I would like to take the opportunity to rail against this.
Firstly, many is a small reckoning. 99% of people aware of the website found out, instantly. The other 1% saw that everyone else had figured it out already and moved on to other things.
Secondly, stop. You weren't cool before, you aren't cool now. Your speech wasn't too funky fresh, in fact I can't think of anyone describing "ur", "luv" and similar shortcuts as such. No, your speech as a baldfaced attempt at pretending to be something you weren't and you failed miserably. Lets look at that again, you failed miserably to mispell words. That just boggles the mind.
Thirdly, it was deathly obvious from that incredible mind-destroying "rap" video that Peter was not, in fact a hip-hop maven. If you survived the video anyway.
Fourthly, a mere cursory look at the webpage immediately screams "marketing". Even Xbox 360 fansites don't plaster system related imagery everywhere like that.
Fifthly, it's not that you were trying to be a little too clever, it's that you A) went out of your way to lie to us and B) failed utterly and completely to fool anyone but yourselves.
Sixthly, your initial product (the webpage) wasn't cool. Making a cool product is a prerequisite to continue making cool products. I can't say I'll continue running away from you screaming at the horror of your creations unless I had already begun my speedy trek in a direction orthogonal to you.
Lastly, it's too late. Who with any sense whatsoever is going to believe anything you say from this point onward? We're supposed to get "just the facts" from a website whose initial point and purpose was an intentional and intricate deception? Snowball's chance on an overclocked CPU.
As an addendum, the worst part of the apology is that they still tried to act cool. When I apologize to someone for a trangression, I do not act as I normally do. My wit, jokes, sarcasm, jolly nature and other attributes are pushed aside because apologies and confessions are serious business. This is especially true when trying to reestablish someone's trust after something as destructive as a lie. Yet Sony, signing as Sony Computer Entertainment America no less, did not cut the crap and continued in part their charade even as they confessed.
I'm of the opinion that whoever is in charge of Sony's PR and marketing needs to be fired, around eight months ago. There hasn't been a single piece of good news generated by Sony's own PR machine starting May 2006 during and after E3. Things that could have been excellent news were lukewarm, and things that might have been only minor issues spiralled uncontrolled into whirlwinds of bad press. This is just another lead pipe on a thoroughly crushed camel.
Sony need to get their PR act together, because ultimately it's going to hurt them severely if they don't. It shouldn't be this hard to market the incumbent.
20061031
Maths
During my lunch break and other moments of rest at work today, I attempted to reengage a sagging and otherwise zombie like mind with some math. Math that many of you will find rather boring as it pertains to video game systems. These were posted in response to other inquiring minds in a revelant topic at slashdot.
There are two major entries here. One on the profitability of Nintendo versus Sony Computer Entertainment, and another on market share in the new generation (set to really get underway in November with the launches of the Wii and the PlayStation 3).
Enjoy, or ignore.
----------
Going to the actual Nintendo website and looking up their profits through each report from 2001 to 2005 I give you Nintendo's profits.
2005: $816,973,000
2004: $316,134,000
2003: $640,640,000
2002: $800,338,000
2001: $726,339,000
This is pure profit. Sales were often in excess of 4 billion dollars. 2004 is lower in profit due to costs incurred in the development of the DS.
None of this is assumption, this is straight numbers taken from Nintendo's fiscal reports free availible at:
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/annual_report.jsp [nintendo.com]
Going to Sony Computer Entertainment Inc(SCEI)'s page, I could only immediately find the numbers for 2005 and 2004 in yen.
2005: 35.5 billion Yen ($302,333,504 by today's conversion rates)
2004: 57.1 billion Yen ($485,916,092 by today's conversion rates)
SCEI made more than Nintendo in 2004, but Nintendo did far, far better than SCEI in 2005.
There's a point to be made that some income and expenditure for both companies during this period would come from the GBA, DS and PSP. However, I think my original point remains that Nintendo remains competitive even with the low market share of the Gamecube. In fact, in that two year period Nintendo soundly beats SCEI.
Quite simply, Nintendo was more profitable than SCEI this past generation despite the incredible market share the PS2 had.
----------
Japanese Allotment: 80k
American Allotment: 400k
Population of Japan: 127.42 million
Previous Japanese Market Volume: 30.31 million (Dreamcast + Gamecube + PS2 in Japan)
Number of PS3s per person: 1 per 1593
Number of PS3s per gamer: 1 per 379
Potential Market Share at Launch: 0.26% (Allotment / Previous Volume)
Population of America: 300.00 million
Previous American Market Volume: 70.8 million (Xbox + Gamecube + PS2)
Number of PS3s per person: 1 per 750
Number of PS3s per gamer: 1 per 177
Potential Market Share at Launch: 0.56%
Combined Potential Market Share: 0.47% (480k) [5.66% relative Market Share]
Current 360 Market Share: 5.93% (6 million) [70.07% relative Market Share]
Potential Wii Launch Market Share: 1.98% (2 million) [23.59% relative Market Share]
Projected March 07 Market Share: 5.93% (6 million) [27.28% relative Market Share]
360 March 07 Market Share: 9.89% (10 million) [45.46% relative Market Share]
Wii March 07 Market Share: 5.93% (6 million) [27.28% relative Market Share]
Addendum:
I used the official company goals/projections. Unofficially Nintendo may have 6 million availible by January, and Sony may fall short of 6 million in March. It seemed unobjective to factor such things in.
6 million for Nintendo is not bad at all, seeing as how the Xbox 360 has been out for almost a year now and has only recently crossed the 6 million mark. The rate at which they produce new consoles in their projections is quite steady and reasonable.
What concerns me are the PS3 forecasts. If taken in two month segments, Sony is practically calling for their production to double or triple itself twice over (.5 + 1.5 + 4.5 ~ 6). Given their continuing supply problems, I'm not certain of how reasonable their 6 million March 07 projection is. If they can manage to succeed in that goal it will be a good thing for them, but I remain skeptical.
There are two major entries here. One on the profitability of Nintendo versus Sony Computer Entertainment, and another on market share in the new generation (set to really get underway in November with the launches of the Wii and the PlayStation 3).
Enjoy, or ignore.
----------
Going to the actual Nintendo website and looking up their profits through each report from 2001 to 2005 I give you Nintendo's profits.
2005: $816,973,000
2004: $316,134,000
2003: $640,640,000
2002: $800,338,000
2001: $726,339,000
This is pure profit. Sales were often in excess of 4 billion dollars. 2004 is lower in profit due to costs incurred in the development of the DS.
None of this is assumption, this is straight numbers taken from Nintendo's fiscal reports free availible at:
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/annual_report.jsp [nintendo.com]
Going to Sony Computer Entertainment Inc(SCEI)'s page, I could only immediately find the numbers for 2005 and 2004 in yen.
2005: 35.5 billion Yen ($302,333,504 by today's conversion rates)
2004: 57.1 billion Yen ($485,916,092 by today's conversion rates)
SCEI made more than Nintendo in 2004, but Nintendo did far, far better than SCEI in 2005.
There's a point to be made that some income and expenditure for both companies during this period would come from the GBA, DS and PSP. However, I think my original point remains that Nintendo remains competitive even with the low market share of the Gamecube. In fact, in that two year period Nintendo soundly beats SCEI.
Quite simply, Nintendo was more profitable than SCEI this past generation despite the incredible market share the PS2 had.
----------
Japanese Allotment: 80k
American Allotment: 400k
Population of Japan: 127.42 million
Previous Japanese Market Volume: 30.31 million (Dreamcast + Gamecube + PS2 in Japan)
Number of PS3s per person: 1 per 1593
Number of PS3s per gamer: 1 per 379
Potential Market Share at Launch: 0.26% (Allotment / Previous Volume)
Population of America: 300.00 million
Previous American Market Volume: 70.8 million (Xbox + Gamecube + PS2)
Number of PS3s per person: 1 per 750
Number of PS3s per gamer: 1 per 177
Potential Market Share at Launch: 0.56%
Combined Potential Market Share: 0.47% (480k) [5.66% relative Market Share]
Current 360 Market Share: 5.93% (6 million) [70.07% relative Market Share]
Potential Wii Launch Market Share: 1.98% (2 million) [23.59% relative Market Share]
Projected March 07 Market Share: 5.93% (6 million) [27.28% relative Market Share]
360 March 07 Market Share: 9.89% (10 million) [45.46% relative Market Share]
Wii March 07 Market Share: 5.93% (6 million) [27.28% relative Market Share]
Addendum:
I used the official company goals/projections. Unofficially Nintendo may have 6 million availible by January, and Sony may fall short of 6 million in March. It seemed unobjective to factor such things in.
6 million for Nintendo is not bad at all, seeing as how the Xbox 360 has been out for almost a year now and has only recently crossed the 6 million mark. The rate at which they produce new consoles in their projections is quite steady and reasonable.
What concerns me are the PS3 forecasts. If taken in two month segments, Sony is practically calling for their production to double or triple itself twice over (.5 + 1.5 + 4.5 ~ 6). Given their continuing supply problems, I'm not certain of how reasonable their 6 million March 07 projection is. If they can manage to succeed in that goal it will be a good thing for them, but I remain skeptical.
20060910
Texas = Big
This is my TV. It is a big TV. It was not a cheap TV.
This is really my splurge for the month, or would be if I didn't need to pick up a futon or sofa before my Dad comes to visit. However, Futon goes more under necessity rather than frivolous luxury, which a TV really is. Although one could even call a futon a luxury, but I think you understand.
It's a Sony, 46' 16:9 aspect ratio TV. Rear projection LCD. Capable of 720p and 1080i resolutions. More video hookups than I know what to do with. A very nice TV stand (some assembly required). Basically this should do me for about 20 years, barring it breaking down. I didn't want to skimp on something I was going to have for a long time. It's actually lighter than the 27' CRT I gave away, and doesn't bite into you when you try and grip it. The size does make it a little awkward to carry.
Anyway, my Playstation 2 which is capable of playing DVDs doesn't want to. It's decided that only games are good enough for it. So I'll have to pick up a DVD player eventually.
I'll also need to get some kind of cable soon, Uncle David is threatening to barge in for Monday night football. These Batchelders like to party.
20060530
Travesty
There's been a lot of experience with travesty these past few weeks. Nothing serious really, but I've encountered various levels of it. A series of events have transpired such that I wonder how many sane people are left in the world, and whether I'll be able to find one of the opposite gender suitable for courtship before my mortal coil is sprung.
Anyway, onto the travesties.
1) The Draenei as the new Alliance race in the World of WarCraft expansion:
This is the smallest of the travesties, and in and of itself isn't bad. I'm looking forwards to running around doing the Tunak Tunak Tan dance, which this race features. However, the travesty was the brutal surgery the history of Azeroth went through to make this possible. Surgery is a nice way of saying that they literally had to rip the whole thing to pieces and sew it back together to work.
The idea as it was presented was that the Draenei were a race who were quite naturally talented with magic. The evil Sargeras offered them power for their allegience, which some of them took greedily while the others fled. These others were chased by their corrupted brethern, who became the Eredar demons of Sargeras' Burning Legion army, and were aided by the Light to evade their pursuers. They eventually settled on Draenor, where after a few millenia of peaceful living were utterly crushed by the Orcs, who were now pawns of the Burning legion. The chaotic, demonic bloodlust of the orcs corrupted many Draenei, mutating their form into the strange and twisted figures seen in WarCraft 3. Most of them look more like the Eredar. These ones crash landed their nethership which they used to escape the orcs after some Blood Elves sabotaged it.
That's jolly good, until several points were sent straight into the heart of this. 1) Sargeras was purportedly disturbed by the existence of demons, including the Eredar, which is partly why he went mad in the first place. 2) Spaceship?
I realize not every game developer can be Bungie and have a supremely anal attitude towards lore, but Blizzard already completely ignored the previously important gender roles of the Night Elves when they made World of WarCraft. It's a travesty what they keep doing to the lore.
2) Halo 2 for PC becomes a Vista exclusive:
If you don't know what Halo 2 is, you don't play video games. If you don't know what Vista is, it's the next version of Windows that Microsoft will find some way of forcing you to upgrade to.
This didn't really bother me until I found more intelligent people than I making the following points.
A) For the cost of upgrading to Vista you can buy an original Xbox and Halo 2 or an Xbox 360 and Halo 3 (when it comes out), depending on what version of Vista you're upgrading to.
B) If Vista was really all that great, it would sell itself and wouldn't need to lean on Bungie for a reason to buy it.
In the end, why does it take so long to port a game to PC when it's been shown time and time again that the Xbox is little more than a PC-in-a-box? Not only that, it's being forced onto an OS no one even has yet.
Travesty.
3) Gunbound:
You may not know of Gunbound, but you may have played many games like it. Worms and Scorched Earth are games which function on similar principles. You have some tank or other object which is horribly beweaponed and lobs shots around an arena at other tanks or objects. Gunbound doesn't deviate here.
One of the unique features of Gunbound was that you had an Avatar. It wasn't just a tank, you had a little person riding it. That person could be decked out in many different outfits, and depending on the server you played on these trappings had bonuses they would grant you. Outfits could be purchased with gold or cash, gold being earned through fighting and cash being legal tender. It was very novel, incredibly cool and overall fun.
After many years of not having access to the game, I finally installed it on Raijin and took it for a spin. The game's as good as ever in the gameplay department, with even a few new tanks since I last played. However, somewhere between then and now travesty struck.
When outfits were purchased before, they were permanent. Your account would be able to sport them unto eternity. Now, the same is true, except the prices are 10x higher to do that. If those Matrix Glasses cost 9000 gold before, they're 60000 gold now for a permanent buy.
Fear not! You can still rent them for a week for 9000 gold... or a month for 18000! It... it just really sucks. There isn't a better way of putting it. Luckily, any items you had before this was done are permanent, so that 27000 Archangel outfit was a real steal. Seriously, imagine if you were paying $2800 to rent that used car for a week. Ugh.
The depths of this travesty know no bounds.
4) PS3 Price:
You knew it had to be here, but the price of this sucker is quite insane. We've been up and down this issue before, but we're likely to see this keep coming up. Sony's PR has done a bang up job of keeping the public grumbling at them over this. I wonder if they're not trying to replicate all the buzz Nintendo got for changing their consoles' name from Revolution to Wii. The difference there is, a Wii by any other name sells just as cheap. Also, the name becomes catchy after a while. The price of the PS3 doesn't grow on you. The more I think about spending $600 for a console, not counting games and extra controllers, the more I grimace. It took a week for Sony apologists to stop sulking in corners and come out to try and defend their beloved PS3. It took 2 minutes to blow their arguments out of the water, 1:52 of which was laughing at the absurdity of their statements.
We've heard the "It's a cheap Blu-Ray" player argument. We've heard the "It's cheap for the power it has" argument. And we've heard straight from Sony the "You'll buy it anyway even without games" argument. These arguments have already been thoroughly rebutted. Honestly, the PS3 is going to be a good system, but come on guys. Seriously, you can come up with better reasons for supporting it than that.
The worst argument yet was that most cutting edge technology is expensive as the early adopters will buy it at any price within reason. Then the prices plummet as it goes mainstream. The idea is that the same is true of the PS3. There are several problems with this argument.
A) The types of cutting edge technology being referred to here are largely technologies where there are multiple competitors making hardware which all does exactly the same thing. Sony TVs, Brand Silly TVs, Panasonic TVs, they all let you hook up VCRs, DVD players and cable to them. Aside from the actual quality of each brand's product, there's little difference. A casual buyer would be just as happy with no brand in particular so long as it worked.
Video game consoles, on the other hand, are extremely focused on brand. There are large, gaping differences between the consoles, and what you buy changes what you can interact with drastically. Imagine if you could only get PBS on a Sony TV, Fox on Brand Silly, and HBO on Panasonic. That's what video game consoles are analogous to. To compare them to technologies like TVs is a severely flawed comparison.
B) Aside from the similar hardware counterpoint, there's the fact that in those competitive hardware fields it's possible to come in late with a good product and enjoy profit. It doesn't matter that there have been TVs for years before, if this new brand does everything the others do it'll sell. That's not to say it's easy to make TVs and whatnot, but there's nothing inherent in the market that makes it impossible for latecomers to succeed so long as they aren't lazy about it.
In the video game industry it's very different. Coming in late is like going to an event at college which offers free food halfway through. Were you expecting food? Sorry, the only things left are the salads no one eats and the deserts that everyone hates. You can't just come in anytime you want and expect things to work just as they would if you came in first. There is food to be had, but it is all scraps.
Now Sony can't be said to be extremely late. They certainly aren't coming in halfway through. However, they're using the same exact strategy for their console they used for the PS2. Overshadow your earliest competitor with far better graphics at E3, charge a lot at launch, use the next generation video format to push consoles. It worked beautifully for the PS2, but Sony is ignoring a great many factors that are vastly different.
i) Sega vs Microsoft
When the PS2 began Sony's second generation of dominion, it was competing against Sega, a financially rocky company that wasn't particularly big. Now that the PS3 is coming, it's fighting another early competitor, but this one is Microsoft. We don't even need to think twice concerning the chance of Microsoft suddenly going bankrupt. It isn't happening this decade.
ii) Sega vs Microsoft Pt 2
Sony amazed us with incredible bonanza's at the E3s prior to the launches of both the Dreamcast and the Xbox 360. However, people believed Sony at the E3 before the Dreamcast. When the one after that came, people were disappointed but there was still a marked difference in graphical prowess between the two systems. It was enough for gamers to feel comfortable with the overhyping Sony had done before, because to an extent they still delivered.
The E3 before the Xbox 360 launched, a similar tactic was used. However, the public took the awesome images with a grain of salt. Only the most zealous of fanboys claimed that all, if any, of the images were not prerendered. Again, the public was ready to forgive that hyping if the system delivered. Unfortunately, this E3 showed that Sony's games looked little different from Microsoft's. The result is a largely dissapointed public, many of whom wondered why they waited, and many others who didn't bother to wonder and just went and bought Xbox 360s.
iii) DVD vs Blu-Ray
DVDs rock. It's hard to refute, although I'm sure my dad could do a good job. They are significantly better than video tapes. They don't wear out as quickly, they give all sorts of options, you can skip ahead with scenes, select specific episodes and largely not have to deal with many of the issues that plagued video tapes. There's a reason why everything's on DVD these days.
Of course, the ill-designed DVD menu is a menace that has come of this, but that is a different travesty for another day.
When the PS2 came onto the scene, there was no question as to the place DVDs would have in the home. People were already buying DVD players and DVDs. Everyone knew they were better, if not necessarily widely circulated yet. While there was some cling to videos that existed, the alure of different language tracks, deleted scenes and director commentary won the day. While some may complain about the cost of buying an entire anime series at only 3 episodes a disc, these are the same people that don't remember that buying cartoons on tape usually involved fewer episodes of lower quality video and audio, and often more expensive per video than we enjoy now per DVD.
The PS3 enjoys no such luxury. It will be one of the first Blu-Ray players on the market, there will be few if any movies on Blu-Ray when it launches, if any in stores. There is not drastic chasm of difference between DVDs and Blu-Ray, like there was for video tapes and DVDs. Most of the public doesn't even know what Blu-Ray is. Ask someone and they'll probably think you're talking about fish.
Travesty.
So I've yet to see the price justified properly. If this trend continues, I may have to beat my Nintendo fanboyism senseless and write a post critical of Nintendo while praising Sony just so that there's something on the internet which successfully does so. I'm actually quite shocked that there haven't been better arguments that the Wii will do poorly, or that Sony will prevail. Whether that's a travesty or not isn't important. What is important is that it's now 1 AM, and I should be asleep, quenching my thirst, or both.
Anyway, onto the travesties.
1) The Draenei as the new Alliance race in the World of WarCraft expansion:
This is the smallest of the travesties, and in and of itself isn't bad. I'm looking forwards to running around doing the Tunak Tunak Tan dance, which this race features. However, the travesty was the brutal surgery the history of Azeroth went through to make this possible. Surgery is a nice way of saying that they literally had to rip the whole thing to pieces and sew it back together to work.
The idea as it was presented was that the Draenei were a race who were quite naturally talented with magic. The evil Sargeras offered them power for their allegience, which some of them took greedily while the others fled. These others were chased by their corrupted brethern, who became the Eredar demons of Sargeras' Burning Legion army, and were aided by the Light to evade their pursuers. They eventually settled on Draenor, where after a few millenia of peaceful living were utterly crushed by the Orcs, who were now pawns of the Burning legion. The chaotic, demonic bloodlust of the orcs corrupted many Draenei, mutating their form into the strange and twisted figures seen in WarCraft 3. Most of them look more like the Eredar. These ones crash landed their nethership which they used to escape the orcs after some Blood Elves sabotaged it.
That's jolly good, until several points were sent straight into the heart of this. 1) Sargeras was purportedly disturbed by the existence of demons, including the Eredar, which is partly why he went mad in the first place. 2) Spaceship?
I realize not every game developer can be Bungie and have a supremely anal attitude towards lore, but Blizzard already completely ignored the previously important gender roles of the Night Elves when they made World of WarCraft. It's a travesty what they keep doing to the lore.
2) Halo 2 for PC becomes a Vista exclusive:
If you don't know what Halo 2 is, you don't play video games. If you don't know what Vista is, it's the next version of Windows that Microsoft will find some way of forcing you to upgrade to.
This didn't really bother me until I found more intelligent people than I making the following points.
A) For the cost of upgrading to Vista you can buy an original Xbox and Halo 2 or an Xbox 360 and Halo 3 (when it comes out), depending on what version of Vista you're upgrading to.
B) If Vista was really all that great, it would sell itself and wouldn't need to lean on Bungie for a reason to buy it.
In the end, why does it take so long to port a game to PC when it's been shown time and time again that the Xbox is little more than a PC-in-a-box? Not only that, it's being forced onto an OS no one even has yet.
Travesty.
3) Gunbound:
You may not know of Gunbound, but you may have played many games like it. Worms and Scorched Earth are games which function on similar principles. You have some tank or other object which is horribly beweaponed and lobs shots around an arena at other tanks or objects. Gunbound doesn't deviate here.
One of the unique features of Gunbound was that you had an Avatar. It wasn't just a tank, you had a little person riding it. That person could be decked out in many different outfits, and depending on the server you played on these trappings had bonuses they would grant you. Outfits could be purchased with gold or cash, gold being earned through fighting and cash being legal tender. It was very novel, incredibly cool and overall fun.
After many years of not having access to the game, I finally installed it on Raijin and took it for a spin. The game's as good as ever in the gameplay department, with even a few new tanks since I last played. However, somewhere between then and now travesty struck.
When outfits were purchased before, they were permanent. Your account would be able to sport them unto eternity. Now, the same is true, except the prices are 10x higher to do that. If those Matrix Glasses cost 9000 gold before, they're 60000 gold now for a permanent buy.
Fear not! You can still rent them for a week for 9000 gold... or a month for 18000! It... it just really sucks. There isn't a better way of putting it. Luckily, any items you had before this was done are permanent, so that 27000 Archangel outfit was a real steal. Seriously, imagine if you were paying $2800 to rent that used car for a week. Ugh.
The depths of this travesty know no bounds.
4) PS3 Price:
You knew it had to be here, but the price of this sucker is quite insane. We've been up and down this issue before, but we're likely to see this keep coming up. Sony's PR has done a bang up job of keeping the public grumbling at them over this. I wonder if they're not trying to replicate all the buzz Nintendo got for changing their consoles' name from Revolution to Wii. The difference there is, a Wii by any other name sells just as cheap. Also, the name becomes catchy after a while. The price of the PS3 doesn't grow on you. The more I think about spending $600 for a console, not counting games and extra controllers, the more I grimace. It took a week for Sony apologists to stop sulking in corners and come out to try and defend their beloved PS3. It took 2 minutes to blow their arguments out of the water, 1:52 of which was laughing at the absurdity of their statements.
We've heard the "It's a cheap Blu-Ray" player argument. We've heard the "It's cheap for the power it has" argument. And we've heard straight from Sony the "You'll buy it anyway even without games" argument. These arguments have already been thoroughly rebutted. Honestly, the PS3 is going to be a good system, but come on guys. Seriously, you can come up with better reasons for supporting it than that.
The worst argument yet was that most cutting edge technology is expensive as the early adopters will buy it at any price within reason. Then the prices plummet as it goes mainstream. The idea is that the same is true of the PS3. There are several problems with this argument.
A) The types of cutting edge technology being referred to here are largely technologies where there are multiple competitors making hardware which all does exactly the same thing. Sony TVs, Brand Silly TVs, Panasonic TVs, they all let you hook up VCRs, DVD players and cable to them. Aside from the actual quality of each brand's product, there's little difference. A casual buyer would be just as happy with no brand in particular so long as it worked.
Video game consoles, on the other hand, are extremely focused on brand. There are large, gaping differences between the consoles, and what you buy changes what you can interact with drastically. Imagine if you could only get PBS on a Sony TV, Fox on Brand Silly, and HBO on Panasonic. That's what video game consoles are analogous to. To compare them to technologies like TVs is a severely flawed comparison.
B) Aside from the similar hardware counterpoint, there's the fact that in those competitive hardware fields it's possible to come in late with a good product and enjoy profit. It doesn't matter that there have been TVs for years before, if this new brand does everything the others do it'll sell. That's not to say it's easy to make TVs and whatnot, but there's nothing inherent in the market that makes it impossible for latecomers to succeed so long as they aren't lazy about it.
In the video game industry it's very different. Coming in late is like going to an event at college which offers free food halfway through. Were you expecting food? Sorry, the only things left are the salads no one eats and the deserts that everyone hates. You can't just come in anytime you want and expect things to work just as they would if you came in first. There is food to be had, but it is all scraps.
Now Sony can't be said to be extremely late. They certainly aren't coming in halfway through. However, they're using the same exact strategy for their console they used for the PS2. Overshadow your earliest competitor with far better graphics at E3, charge a lot at launch, use the next generation video format to push consoles. It worked beautifully for the PS2, but Sony is ignoring a great many factors that are vastly different.
i) Sega vs Microsoft
When the PS2 began Sony's second generation of dominion, it was competing against Sega, a financially rocky company that wasn't particularly big. Now that the PS3 is coming, it's fighting another early competitor, but this one is Microsoft. We don't even need to think twice concerning the chance of Microsoft suddenly going bankrupt. It isn't happening this decade.
ii) Sega vs Microsoft Pt 2
Sony amazed us with incredible bonanza's at the E3s prior to the launches of both the Dreamcast and the Xbox 360. However, people believed Sony at the E3 before the Dreamcast. When the one after that came, people were disappointed but there was still a marked difference in graphical prowess between the two systems. It was enough for gamers to feel comfortable with the overhyping Sony had done before, because to an extent they still delivered.
The E3 before the Xbox 360 launched, a similar tactic was used. However, the public took the awesome images with a grain of salt. Only the most zealous of fanboys claimed that all, if any, of the images were not prerendered. Again, the public was ready to forgive that hyping if the system delivered. Unfortunately, this E3 showed that Sony's games looked little different from Microsoft's. The result is a largely dissapointed public, many of whom wondered why they waited, and many others who didn't bother to wonder and just went and bought Xbox 360s.
iii) DVD vs Blu-Ray
DVDs rock. It's hard to refute, although I'm sure my dad could do a good job. They are significantly better than video tapes. They don't wear out as quickly, they give all sorts of options, you can skip ahead with scenes, select specific episodes and largely not have to deal with many of the issues that plagued video tapes. There's a reason why everything's on DVD these days.
Of course, the ill-designed DVD menu is a menace that has come of this, but that is a different travesty for another day.
When the PS2 came onto the scene, there was no question as to the place DVDs would have in the home. People were already buying DVD players and DVDs. Everyone knew they were better, if not necessarily widely circulated yet. While there was some cling to videos that existed, the alure of different language tracks, deleted scenes and director commentary won the day. While some may complain about the cost of buying an entire anime series at only 3 episodes a disc, these are the same people that don't remember that buying cartoons on tape usually involved fewer episodes of lower quality video and audio, and often more expensive per video than we enjoy now per DVD.
The PS3 enjoys no such luxury. It will be one of the first Blu-Ray players on the market, there will be few if any movies on Blu-Ray when it launches, if any in stores. There is not drastic chasm of difference between DVDs and Blu-Ray, like there was for video tapes and DVDs. Most of the public doesn't even know what Blu-Ray is. Ask someone and they'll probably think you're talking about fish.
Travesty.
So I've yet to see the price justified properly. If this trend continues, I may have to beat my Nintendo fanboyism senseless and write a post critical of Nintendo while praising Sony just so that there's something on the internet which successfully does so. I'm actually quite shocked that there haven't been better arguments that the Wii will do poorly, or that Sony will prevail. Whether that's a travesty or not isn't important. What is important is that it's now 1 AM, and I should be asleep, quenching my thirst, or both.
20060522
Gloom, not doom.
A lot of people are mad at Sony. Not everyone, some people are just annoyed. There are certainly a great number of indifferent people, and plenty who are still staring dreamily at pictures of the PS3.
Now, Sony's done many things to raise one's ire. They took out the rumble pack from their controller and shamelessly imitated Nintendo. They priced their system at $500-$600. They use a Cel chip which, while powerful, has an architecture that currently gives developers migraines. And most recently, they told us we'd buy it without games.
You can guess that everyone and their twin brother has projected a horrible, firey death for Sony and everyone involved. It doesn't take much to know that angry people write angry things, and that even the best of attempts to think straight when one is livid with rage go awry. As such, reading the comments on /. will lead you to believe that the gamers of the world are ready to swim to Japan and wring Sony's neck in the greatest seaborne invasion since Normandy.
I'm certainly not perfect, and I'm sure I've cast my share of doom at Sony here and there. However, despite continual attempts by Sony's wonderful PR (seriously, who hired them?) to destroy their chances at another successful console Sony will certainly do well. Consider what I have to say.
Nintendo once had a monopoly on the video game market, followed by another near monopoly. The NES and SNES quite simply dominated. Some people had Sega's Genesis, but hands down Nintendo was still king. Today, Nintendo is third in the US, and generally low on market share in general. They've always made profit, but were they to continue to hemorrhage market share they certainly would go out of business.
What went wrong with Nintendo, at least partially, is what's going wrong with Sony now. Namely, hubris. If you look at it historically, no console manufacturer has maintained dominance for more than two generations. Both Atari and Nintendo enjoyed the high life. One collapsed, was consumed, and was spat out as a brand. The other lives on, but many say barely. Sony's at the same juncture as Atari and Nintendo were, and is repeating their mistakes.
I highly doubt Sony is going to follow in Atari's footsteps, if only because Atari's vanity was so great that cartridges were literally bulldozed into landfills. They are more likely to go the way of Nintendo because of the similarities between the two companies. Beyond both being japanese, they both supplanted a previously popular competitor (although the situations were different), and they both released (or will release) the most technologically powerful system, last, in the generation they lost (or will lose) the limelight.
The Nintendo 64 was the best system in terms of graphics, heck, hardware in general. Four built in ports meant easy four player games. It was a dream. It was also built with the attitude, "They'll buy it because we're Nintendo". It was sold with that attitude, and by the time Nintendo had figured out that something was amiss, Sony was laughing all the way to the bank. However, the Nintendo 64 did very well for the very reason they thought it would. It was Nintendo, and so people bought it. However, as good as slightly less than half the market may seem it's a staggering drop from a monopoly.
Sony is probably going to experience something similar. People will definately buy the PS3, lots of them. I'd be surprised if Sony failed to sell at least 50 million PS3s before they're done. However, considering the success of the PS2, selling only that many is a staggering drop in success. If Sony doesn't realize what's happened when they start work on the PS4, they'll be near to where Nintendo is now.
Unfortunately, Sony has many more problems to face than Nintendo did in the same position. Specifically, Nintendo never failed to make a profit on any of its consoles, and also had our favorite Nintendo franchises to carry them along. Sony, on the other hand, is not as straight out profitable as Nintendo. Despite having somewhere between 1/10th and 1/5th the market share Sony has, Nintendo made more money on their Gamecube than Sony made on the PS2. Additionally, Sony's major franchises are actually third party products. Metal Gear Solid and Grand Theft Auto are already taking the first steps to leaving them. What were originally thought to be Sony exclusives turned up elsewhere. Snake will be in Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, and Grand Theft Auto 4 will be on the Xbox 360 with exclusive content. The latest and greatest Final Fantasy has always been on the Sony train since the N64 failed to provide the storage space for those eye dropping computer rendered sequences. While Final Fantasy XIII will be a PS3 exclusive, Nintendo's been reigning on Sony's parade with many of it's own exclusives such as Crystal Chronicles and numerous remakes of the old classic Final Fantasies.
In short, Sony will do well this generation, but is on road to destruction. Sony will not suddenly drop off the map this generation. However, they're going to have to work doubly hard next generation to prevent from falling into that long list of companies that didn't last in the world of video games. I think they can do it, it's up to them to actually do so.
Now, Sony's done many things to raise one's ire. They took out the rumble pack from their controller and shamelessly imitated Nintendo. They priced their system at $500-$600. They use a Cel chip which, while powerful, has an architecture that currently gives developers migraines. And most recently, they told us we'd buy it without games.
You can guess that everyone and their twin brother has projected a horrible, firey death for Sony and everyone involved. It doesn't take much to know that angry people write angry things, and that even the best of attempts to think straight when one is livid with rage go awry. As such, reading the comments on /. will lead you to believe that the gamers of the world are ready to swim to Japan and wring Sony's neck in the greatest seaborne invasion since Normandy.
I'm certainly not perfect, and I'm sure I've cast my share of doom at Sony here and there. However, despite continual attempts by Sony's wonderful PR (seriously, who hired them?) to destroy their chances at another successful console Sony will certainly do well. Consider what I have to say.
Nintendo once had a monopoly on the video game market, followed by another near monopoly. The NES and SNES quite simply dominated. Some people had Sega's Genesis, but hands down Nintendo was still king. Today, Nintendo is third in the US, and generally low on market share in general. They've always made profit, but were they to continue to hemorrhage market share they certainly would go out of business.
What went wrong with Nintendo, at least partially, is what's going wrong with Sony now. Namely, hubris. If you look at it historically, no console manufacturer has maintained dominance for more than two generations. Both Atari and Nintendo enjoyed the high life. One collapsed, was consumed, and was spat out as a brand. The other lives on, but many say barely. Sony's at the same juncture as Atari and Nintendo were, and is repeating their mistakes.
I highly doubt Sony is going to follow in Atari's footsteps, if only because Atari's vanity was so great that cartridges were literally bulldozed into landfills. They are more likely to go the way of Nintendo because of the similarities between the two companies. Beyond both being japanese, they both supplanted a previously popular competitor (although the situations were different), and they both released (or will release) the most technologically powerful system, last, in the generation they lost (or will lose) the limelight.
The Nintendo 64 was the best system in terms of graphics, heck, hardware in general. Four built in ports meant easy four player games. It was a dream. It was also built with the attitude, "They'll buy it because we're Nintendo". It was sold with that attitude, and by the time Nintendo had figured out that something was amiss, Sony was laughing all the way to the bank. However, the Nintendo 64 did very well for the very reason they thought it would. It was Nintendo, and so people bought it. However, as good as slightly less than half the market may seem it's a staggering drop from a monopoly.
Sony is probably going to experience something similar. People will definately buy the PS3, lots of them. I'd be surprised if Sony failed to sell at least 50 million PS3s before they're done. However, considering the success of the PS2, selling only that many is a staggering drop in success. If Sony doesn't realize what's happened when they start work on the PS4, they'll be near to where Nintendo is now.
Unfortunately, Sony has many more problems to face than Nintendo did in the same position. Specifically, Nintendo never failed to make a profit on any of its consoles, and also had our favorite Nintendo franchises to carry them along. Sony, on the other hand, is not as straight out profitable as Nintendo. Despite having somewhere between 1/10th and 1/5th the market share Sony has, Nintendo made more money on their Gamecube than Sony made on the PS2. Additionally, Sony's major franchises are actually third party products. Metal Gear Solid and Grand Theft Auto are already taking the first steps to leaving them. What were originally thought to be Sony exclusives turned up elsewhere. Snake will be in Super Smash Brothers: Brawl, and Grand Theft Auto 4 will be on the Xbox 360 with exclusive content. The latest and greatest Final Fantasy has always been on the Sony train since the N64 failed to provide the storage space for those eye dropping computer rendered sequences. While Final Fantasy XIII will be a PS3 exclusive, Nintendo's been reigning on Sony's parade with many of it's own exclusives such as Crystal Chronicles and numerous remakes of the old classic Final Fantasies.
In short, Sony will do well this generation, but is on road to destruction. Sony will not suddenly drop off the map this generation. However, they're going to have to work doubly hard next generation to prevent from falling into that long list of companies that didn't last in the world of video games. I think they can do it, it's up to them to actually do so.
20060512
E3: The Road Ahead
Now the speculation begins.
With just about everything said and done, the time for prognostication has come. I have no claims of seerhood or prophet like predictions. I just have my gut feelings, and here's what they're saying.
Sony's screwed.
This isn't just about price. This is about what Sony showed us this E3. Sony unveiled to us that with an extra year of development, they created a system that doesn't show any better performance quality than the Xbox 360 that costs an extra $200. A system which shamelessly tacked on motion sensors into its controller at the cost of force feedback. A system whose only major exclusive games are Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy 13.
That's a brief summary. Depth time.
Coming into this, those of us who pay attention to video games and the companies that make them had expectations of Sony. Their system was given a year longer to develop than Microsoft's, and as such we expected to see a year's worth of improvement over Microsoft's system. Through the course of Sony's press conference, the feeling grew that Sony didn't have it all together. Their conference lacked style, lacked structure, and looked like it lacked preparation. The most interesting parts of the show were third party games. Most importantly, the vast majority of games that were shown did not look any better than what had been out on the Xbox 360 this past Christmas. Sony fanboys and the rest of us alike had been expecting that Sony was going to plaster Microsoft with games so beautiful we would cry, or at least significantly better looking. Because that was not seen, we strained to find other redeeming qualities in the system, and found nothing that set it apart.
Sony revealed a new online service, something Microsoft has had and refined for a few years now. Not to mention that Microsoft's is running right now, with a full feature set while Sony's still resides in the realm of vaporware. Sony showed connectivity between the PSP and PS3, something Nintendo pioneered with their Gameboy Advance and Gamecube (both of which were also far cheaper). Sony showed off their eyetoy, but only left us wondering was it all smoke and mirrors through a lack of details. Lastly, they tried to wow us with their motion sensitive controller, but left us scratching our heads at the removal of the force feedback (and the possible irony of them copying Nintendo after bashing motion detection as a gimmick).
Overall the feeling I got in my gut, as well as from what I read of other people, was that Sony had dissapointed. The price was a kick where it hurts, and the higher price of the full version a shotgun to the face. A lot of people have made the argument that it's a bargain because of the built in blu-ray player. That worked for Sony with the PS2 because we knew that DVDs were the next medium. There were no ifs or buts about it, DVDs were what was next. Now, we have no clue. There's too much uncertainty as to what the next medium will be, or even if as to whether we need it.
Meanwhile, Microsoft showed off their second generation of games for the Xbox 360, not all of which were sports games or first person shooters. Microsoft caught wind somewhere that the hardcore gaming crowd only has so much money to spend, and that the market as a whole will shrink (or in the case of Japan, is shrinking minus what Nintendo has accomplished) if nothing is done to reach out to more people than teens age 14-19, and college students age 20-24. Their efforts are somewhat bungled, and not entirely effective, but will ultimately give them a huge advantage. They will have a good number of games for people who aren't interested in Football 2010 or Gunfirekilldead 2007. Additionally, with their online service connecting PCs and consoles, they've leveraged their OS (again) to propel them through a new market.
Nintendo showed that they've got games, and lots of them. They showed that their new console works, and works well. They showed that they understand what needs to be done in the console industry, and that they know how to do it. Nintendo isn't just reaching out to the greater public, they're building huge bridges while maintaining the beauty of the place they're building bridges from. Nintendo killed any question as to whether they have third party support, and in an industry where franchises are becoming stale and losing the weight they carried, Nintendo still has all their old classics such as Mario, Link and Samus standing strong and fresh as the day they were conceived.
Because of all that, I can't see this generation going Sony's way. Early adopters and some casual gamers who already have a playstation of one form or another will buy the PS3, but aside from holiday frenzy it will hardly sell. Like the PSP, it may start strong at Christmas, but sales will just end there. Meanwhile, disillusioned hardcore gamers will jump ship to the Xbox 360 and to the great series residing there. With a potential price drop to boot, the Xbox 360 will sell at least as much as the PS3 if not more during the holidays and will continue to sell thereafter. In Japan, sales of the Xbox 360 will pick up some but not significantly, while the PS3 will fare better there but not enough to make up for the poor showing in the US. Meanwhile, Nintendo will fare better than either of their "competitors". Through simple elegance, and low price, the Wii will sell like crazy in the US, and will hardly be found in stores in Japan. While there will be contention for the US market, Japan will be soundly won by Nintendo.
Microsoft may turn a small profit halfway through the generation, Nintendo will make money as always, and Sony will lose large gobs of money and accomplish little.
I never thought I'd want to predict Microsoft doing well, but honestly they have an understanding that games need to move away from the current "nerdy guy shoot things crush" mindset. It's nowhere as complete or perfect as Nintendo's, but I'll pick the huge monolithic megacorporation that has some sense of what needs to be done over the one that has been riding on the success of their first console ever since it was successful.
With just about everything said and done, the time for prognostication has come. I have no claims of seerhood or prophet like predictions. I just have my gut feelings, and here's what they're saying.
Sony's screwed.
This isn't just about price. This is about what Sony showed us this E3. Sony unveiled to us that with an extra year of development, they created a system that doesn't show any better performance quality than the Xbox 360 that costs an extra $200. A system which shamelessly tacked on motion sensors into its controller at the cost of force feedback. A system whose only major exclusive games are Metal Gear Solid 4 and Final Fantasy 13.
That's a brief summary. Depth time.
Coming into this, those of us who pay attention to video games and the companies that make them had expectations of Sony. Their system was given a year longer to develop than Microsoft's, and as such we expected to see a year's worth of improvement over Microsoft's system. Through the course of Sony's press conference, the feeling grew that Sony didn't have it all together. Their conference lacked style, lacked structure, and looked like it lacked preparation. The most interesting parts of the show were third party games. Most importantly, the vast majority of games that were shown did not look any better than what had been out on the Xbox 360 this past Christmas. Sony fanboys and the rest of us alike had been expecting that Sony was going to plaster Microsoft with games so beautiful we would cry, or at least significantly better looking. Because that was not seen, we strained to find other redeeming qualities in the system, and found nothing that set it apart.
Sony revealed a new online service, something Microsoft has had and refined for a few years now. Not to mention that Microsoft's is running right now, with a full feature set while Sony's still resides in the realm of vaporware. Sony showed connectivity between the PSP and PS3, something Nintendo pioneered with their Gameboy Advance and Gamecube (both of which were also far cheaper). Sony showed off their eyetoy, but only left us wondering was it all smoke and mirrors through a lack of details. Lastly, they tried to wow us with their motion sensitive controller, but left us scratching our heads at the removal of the force feedback (and the possible irony of them copying Nintendo after bashing motion detection as a gimmick).
Overall the feeling I got in my gut, as well as from what I read of other people, was that Sony had dissapointed. The price was a kick where it hurts, and the higher price of the full version a shotgun to the face. A lot of people have made the argument that it's a bargain because of the built in blu-ray player. That worked for Sony with the PS2 because we knew that DVDs were the next medium. There were no ifs or buts about it, DVDs were what was next. Now, we have no clue. There's too much uncertainty as to what the next medium will be, or even if as to whether we need it.
Meanwhile, Microsoft showed off their second generation of games for the Xbox 360, not all of which were sports games or first person shooters. Microsoft caught wind somewhere that the hardcore gaming crowd only has so much money to spend, and that the market as a whole will shrink (or in the case of Japan, is shrinking minus what Nintendo has accomplished) if nothing is done to reach out to more people than teens age 14-19, and college students age 20-24. Their efforts are somewhat bungled, and not entirely effective, but will ultimately give them a huge advantage. They will have a good number of games for people who aren't interested in Football 2010 or Gunfirekilldead 2007. Additionally, with their online service connecting PCs and consoles, they've leveraged their OS (again) to propel them through a new market.
Nintendo showed that they've got games, and lots of them. They showed that their new console works, and works well. They showed that they understand what needs to be done in the console industry, and that they know how to do it. Nintendo isn't just reaching out to the greater public, they're building huge bridges while maintaining the beauty of the place they're building bridges from. Nintendo killed any question as to whether they have third party support, and in an industry where franchises are becoming stale and losing the weight they carried, Nintendo still has all their old classics such as Mario, Link and Samus standing strong and fresh as the day they were conceived.
Because of all that, I can't see this generation going Sony's way. Early adopters and some casual gamers who already have a playstation of one form or another will buy the PS3, but aside from holiday frenzy it will hardly sell. Like the PSP, it may start strong at Christmas, but sales will just end there. Meanwhile, disillusioned hardcore gamers will jump ship to the Xbox 360 and to the great series residing there. With a potential price drop to boot, the Xbox 360 will sell at least as much as the PS3 if not more during the holidays and will continue to sell thereafter. In Japan, sales of the Xbox 360 will pick up some but not significantly, while the PS3 will fare better there but not enough to make up for the poor showing in the US. Meanwhile, Nintendo will fare better than either of their "competitors". Through simple elegance, and low price, the Wii will sell like crazy in the US, and will hardly be found in stores in Japan. While there will be contention for the US market, Japan will be soundly won by Nintendo.
Microsoft may turn a small profit halfway through the generation, Nintendo will make money as always, and Sony will lose large gobs of money and accomplish little.
I never thought I'd want to predict Microsoft doing well, but honestly they have an understanding that games need to move away from the current "nerdy guy shoot things crush" mindset. It's nowhere as complete or perfect as Nintendo's, but I'll pick the huge monolithic megacorporation that has some sense of what needs to be done over the one that has been riding on the success of their first console ever since it was successful.
20060509
E3: Sony Press Conference
Don't be confused, this and coming E3 segments will not necessarily be separate rants about the methods and madnesses of Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo. While I may eventually use what foresight I have to predict the outcome of the next console war, these entries are more likely to just encapsulate whatever struck me the hardest about what I've seen.
In this case, why do 90% of video games (excluding sports) involve guns, swords, cars, or a combination thereof?
I am reminded of the friend of my host family from Japan, who emplored me that I might make video games that were so violent. In fact, I think I can finally see what he sees. He is a parent, and thus is concerned for his children. I am soon to be a part of the real world, which puts me one step closer to having children. Thus, I have become far more aware of parental concerns, although nowhere near the level a real parent would have.
In any case, while I enjoy games that involve violence in one form or another, I also enjoy games that don't. Katamari Damancy, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, and others come to mind. Thus it pains me that they are so maligned in the industry. I don't want the abolishment of violent games, but it would be nice if there was something other than them to play.
The world doesn't need another First Person Shooter. While I may not have much choice if I find a job with a video game company, I know now that if I ever get creative control I will forge ahead on the hard path of innovation and non-violence. Not because I am a pacifist, but because I want there to be video games my children can play (while they WILL play outside, I don't want to lock them out of the house).
I can only hope I see better promise from Microsoft and Nintendo.
There were some technowhatsits that piqued my interest. The connection between the PSP and PS3 interested me, as did the use of the eyetoy to analyze cards and create monsters from them. Unfortunately, those techie things weren't given much attention or detail. The person feature and mannerism capturing doohickey was interesting, but boring.
However, I will comment that Sony are copycatting hacks. Regardless of how well the PS3 controller does the job, which from looking at the conference it was hard to tell as half of it wasn't even shown from the feed I had, Nintendo came first. As far as I can tell it's limited to tilting mechanics, with a little bit of throwing it around. It looked like there was some lag between the controller and the demo, but again it's hard to tell. Hell, it's entirely possible the demo was staged, but that's jumping to conclusions. In any case, the whole thing reeks of "me too" mentality, with Sony copying Nintendo so that if and when the Nintendo console is highly successful they can ride on Nintendo's coattails. An all around grr to Sony.
Lastly, watching HD stuff in a low-res video stream isn't impressive.
In this case, why do 90% of video games (excluding sports) involve guns, swords, cars, or a combination thereof?
I am reminded of the friend of my host family from Japan, who emplored me that I might make video games that were so violent. In fact, I think I can finally see what he sees. He is a parent, and thus is concerned for his children. I am soon to be a part of the real world, which puts me one step closer to having children. Thus, I have become far more aware of parental concerns, although nowhere near the level a real parent would have.
In any case, while I enjoy games that involve violence in one form or another, I also enjoy games that don't. Katamari Damancy, Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, and others come to mind. Thus it pains me that they are so maligned in the industry. I don't want the abolishment of violent games, but it would be nice if there was something other than them to play.
The world doesn't need another First Person Shooter. While I may not have much choice if I find a job with a video game company, I know now that if I ever get creative control I will forge ahead on the hard path of innovation and non-violence. Not because I am a pacifist, but because I want there to be video games my children can play (while they WILL play outside, I don't want to lock them out of the house).
I can only hope I see better promise from Microsoft and Nintendo.
There were some technowhatsits that piqued my interest. The connection between the PSP and PS3 interested me, as did the use of the eyetoy to analyze cards and create monsters from them. Unfortunately, those techie things weren't given much attention or detail. The person feature and mannerism capturing doohickey was interesting, but boring.
However, I will comment that Sony are copycatting hacks. Regardless of how well the PS3 controller does the job, which from looking at the conference it was hard to tell as half of it wasn't even shown from the feed I had, Nintendo came first. As far as I can tell it's limited to tilting mechanics, with a little bit of throwing it around. It looked like there was some lag between the controller and the demo, but again it's hard to tell. Hell, it's entirely possible the demo was staged, but that's jumping to conclusions. In any case, the whole thing reeks of "me too" mentality, with Sony copying Nintendo so that if and when the Nintendo console is highly successful they can ride on Nintendo's coattails. An all around grr to Sony.
Lastly, watching HD stuff in a low-res video stream isn't impressive.
20051115
The Root of the Problem
So there's this thing, a computer thing, a Sony thing, a nasty thing called the Rootkit.
Now this thing has a noble purpose. It's supposed to prevent the spread of illegal mp3s. That's just fine, but this thing has some interesting ends to this means.
This thing installs itself from a Sony music CD loaded into a PC CD-ROM. It doesn't ask, it just does. It does its job, this thing, rather indiscriminately. So much so that it can crash your computer hard. It will do everything in its power to prevent you from burning CDs, or ripping if it isn't positive your CD is legitimate.
This thing also phones home. It sends a little message to Sony, making sure the CD you're using is unique. There isn't much to the message, just a simple request for some data from Sony so this thing knows what to do. But, when two computers communicate like that, information gets out. IP addresses, MAC addresses, connection type, and given the nature of the communication, the CD you purchased, all these are easily known.
This thing also hides, oh how it hides. It hides so well hackers now use it to hide their malicious programs so that nice programs like Norton don't know, so that they can cheat in online games, so that they can do what they want.
This thing, this "Rootkit", doesn't sound so noble now does it?
The worst part, this thing is everywhere.
Nice thing ain't it?
Prose aside, Sony's Rootkit they couples with a lot of recent music CDs has been a hot topic because of how it both violates personal freedom in the name of DRM, how it acts just like a trojan, and how it can be easily by hackers to hide programs they use to cheat in online games (such as WoW).
If you haven't bought any recent Sony CDs in the past month, you should be fine. Otherwise, you should probably find out whether it's on your computer, and what you can do about it. Sony certainly hasn't been the kindest company in the world in terms of dealing with the growing rumblings this has caused, and still hasn't provided a decent way of either detecting or removing it.
Ughification at its best.
Now this thing has a noble purpose. It's supposed to prevent the spread of illegal mp3s. That's just fine, but this thing has some interesting ends to this means.
This thing installs itself from a Sony music CD loaded into a PC CD-ROM. It doesn't ask, it just does. It does its job, this thing, rather indiscriminately. So much so that it can crash your computer hard. It will do everything in its power to prevent you from burning CDs, or ripping if it isn't positive your CD is legitimate.
This thing also phones home. It sends a little message to Sony, making sure the CD you're using is unique. There isn't much to the message, just a simple request for some data from Sony so this thing knows what to do. But, when two computers communicate like that, information gets out. IP addresses, MAC addresses, connection type, and given the nature of the communication, the CD you purchased, all these are easily known.
This thing also hides, oh how it hides. It hides so well hackers now use it to hide their malicious programs so that nice programs like Norton don't know, so that they can cheat in online games, so that they can do what they want.
This thing, this "Rootkit", doesn't sound so noble now does it?
The worst part, this thing is everywhere.
Nice thing ain't it?
Prose aside, Sony's Rootkit they couples with a lot of recent music CDs has been a hot topic because of how it both violates personal freedom in the name of DRM, how it acts just like a trojan, and how it can be easily by hackers to hide programs they use to cheat in online games (such as WoW).
If you haven't bought any recent Sony CDs in the past month, you should be fine. Otherwise, you should probably find out whether it's on your computer, and what you can do about it. Sony certainly hasn't been the kindest company in the world in terms of dealing with the growing rumblings this has caused, and still hasn't provided a decent way of either detecting or removing it.
Ughification at its best.
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